ANALYSIS – If you thought that the Japanese mob or violent organized crime syndicate known as the “yakuza” was mostly movie fiction – guess again.
In what sounds like an international crime thriller, a Japanese yakuza boss was arrested in Manhattan after trying to sell nuclear material to an undercover U.S. federal agent posing as an associate of an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) general.
The Japanese mobster's intent was to help the Iranian terror regime more quickly build a nuclear weapon.
As part of the planned deal, prosecutors say, Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, initially asked for $6.85 million for the 50 metric tons of uranium yellow cake and thorium-232, later changing the Uranium for weapons grade plutonium coming from Myanmar (also known as Burma).
He also tried to buy surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), M60 machine guns and AK-47 rifles for the leader of that nation's armed insurgency, as well as rebels in Sri Lanka.
The U.S. agents told the Japanese crime boss that the weapons he wanted had been stolen from a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.
Beginning in 2020, Ebisawa and Somphop Singhasiri, a Thai national, and his partner in crime, also sought to sell hundreds of kilos of methamphetamine and heroin to an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent to then distribute in New York.
Ebisawa, a known member of the Yakuza international crime syndicate, has been under DEA surveillance since 2019, with the agency calling him a “big player” in weapons and drug trafficking.
“It is impossible to overstate the seriousness of this conduct,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a news release.
The Washington Post provided more details:
In 2021, Ebisawa traveled to Copenhagen and met with an undercover U.S. official and two undercover Danish police officers posing as the U.S. official's associates, to examine the military weapons purportedly on offer, according to U.S. authorities. In February 2022, Ebisawa's associates, who were not identified, met with the undercover U.S. agent in a hotel room in Phuket, Thailand, to show samples of the nuclear material. Thai authorities later confiscated the nuclear material and handed it over to U.S. officials.
U.S. officials said they subsequently confirmed that the materials that were in Ebisawa's possession were radioactive and included weapons-grade plutonium.
The New York Times added that:
In May 2022, law enforcement personnel searched the Bangkok office and found the material. A U.S. nuclear forensic laboratory examined it and found detectable quantities of uranium, thorium, and plutonium. “The plutonium, if produced in sufficient quantities, would be suitable for use in a nuclear weapon,” the indictment says.
According to the Daily Mail: “Ebisawa is charged with conspiracy to commit international trafficking of nuclear materials; trafficking of nuclear materials; narcotics importation conspiracy; conspiracy to acquire, transfer and possess surface-to-air missiles; conspiracy to possess firearms, including machine guns and destructive devices; and money laundering.”
He faces a possible life sentence.
Singhasiri is charged with narcotics importation conspiracy and conspiracy to possess firearms, including machine guns and destructive devices. He also faces a possible life sentence.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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